Robert Gottlieb Quotes

Oh, I've become immune to the Booker. I think we need something a little more like the Pulitzer prize, where there isn't this great race.

Dr. Johnson has said that the chief glory of a country arises from its authors. But then that is only as they are oracles of wisdom; unless they teach virtue, they are more worthy of a halter than of the laurel.

I am, of course, greatly honoured to win the Booker, which is one of the great literary prizes in the world.

I'm very lucky. I'm very fortunate that my books have never gone out of print - none of them.

I'm never going to be in danger of getting the Nobel Prize for literature.

Is the prestige conferred by the Man Booker prize for the book or me? I would prefer it on the book and for me to be treated ordinarily.

One man is as good as another until he has written a book.

I'm sure I wouldn't have been asked to judge the Man Booker if it weren't for 'Downton.'

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.

Every year, the Giller jury is different. You write the best book you can and throw it out there.

The hardest part of anything is making a dish consistently great - you order it seven years later, if it's still on the menu, and it's still as good as what you remember.

Since, therefore, individuals as well as the public are so indebted to these writers for the benefits they enjoy, I think them not only entitled to the honour of palms and crowns, but even to be numbered among the gods.

People aren't quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They're not quite sure what is being recommended, what literary values it stands for, because every year it stands for something different.

I believe if you write a great book, the chances are it'll get a great reception.

I'm glad a genre writer has got a knighthood, but stunned that it was me.

I'm not at all snobby about book prizes and how they pollute the world of literature. Just like with the Olympics, a little bit of competition gets people truly engrossed in the business of literature.

What's important to me is that all of my books are in print - and, in a way, that becomes the challenge, not winning this prize or getting that review. It's that the work is there, and you can walk into many bookshops throughout the world and buy it.

I thought they would never select an Eastern writer for the Nobel. I was surprised.

Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature.

The Booker Prize is a big, popular prize for big, popular books, and that's the way it should be.

I don't think if you're serious about literature your library is filled with award-winning books.

In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life.

I'm beyond thrilled to be working with Faber, whose literary history is second to none. And I'm even more excited to bring my books to a wider audience in the U.K.

I hate to tell you this, but I did not know what the National Book Award was when I got the call.

I don't really know what the Great American Novel is. I like the idea that there could be one now, and I wouldn't object if someone thought it was mine, but I don't claim to have written that - I just wrote my book.